The invention relates to an industrial cleaning facility for the surface treatment of objects, especially of processed workpieces, with a treating medium, such as a cleaning liquid, steam, compressed air, heat, vacuum or the like, at least one processing chamber, which for loading and unloading is brought into an opened position and, as working position, is brought into a closed position, being provided for the treatment.
In the U.S. Pat. No. 3,706,317, a facility for washing and rinsing food containers for equipment on board of aircraft or other means of transportation is described. The facility, constructed for continuous operation, contains a washing chamber and a rinsing chamber, which are disposed in a straight row and each of which can be closed off by swinging doors. For transporting the food containers, moveable trailers are provided, which run on rails and, with the help of an endless revolving chain, are pulled in a row consecutively in a certain time cycle, step for step, through the facility. Each trailer of this facility has a hook and the chain has several catches, which are disposed at a distance from another and to which the trailers are hooked. The distance of the catches from one another corresponds precisely to the magnitude of a transporting step of the revolving chain, by means of which a first trailer is transported from the washing chamber into the rinsing chamber and a second trailer is transported into the washing chamber. Each trailer is placed in the center of the respective chamber, so that the doors can be opened or closed. By means of this construction of the facility, the trailers are guided at the chain, so that the required distance can be maintained. The exact positioning of the trailers in the chambers depends on the control of the movement of the chain. In order to be able to operate this facility, an operator must always move back and forth from the loading side to the unloading side, which can still be justified economically in the case of a partial load operation or for a small facility, such as this one without a drying step. For a full load operation or for a large industrial facility, however, the distances, which must be covered from loading to unloading, are so large in the case of such an in-line facility, that the use is not economically feasible.
DE 42 20 927 A1 discloses a continuous cleaning facility, with which washing boxes, which are permeable to the treating medium and disposed consecutively in a row, are taken up. The known cleaning facility has three processing chambers, which are disposed consecutively, namely, a cleaning chamber, a rinsing chamber and a drying chamber. The facility is operated by transporting the container in the cleaning chamber and the container in the rinsing chamber as well as the container in the drying chamber jointly into the next station.
At the inlet and outlet openings of the processing chambers, lids or doors are mounted, with which the chambers can be closed off during the treatment phase.
In order to facilitate the transport of washing boxes from chamber to chamber, rollers and slide rails are mounted in the processing chambers and form a transporting segment. In each processing chamber, a rotation device is installed, which takes up the washing box and can be caused to rotate by a motor in the longitudinal direction of the processing chamber, so that the washing box in the chamber is rotated during the processing phase. For this purpose, the washing box is closed off with a lid, so that the material, being washed, cannot fall out.
The motor for driving the rotation device is mounted at the outer wall of the processing chamber and drives the rotation device over a transmission. Moreover, the operating facilities for the individual processing chambers, such as pumps, valves, dampers, control and regulating equipment are installed at or in the chambers and connected over pipeline networks to the stationary devices of the facilities, such as containers holding cleaning or rinsing agents, distillation equipment and blowers for drying the processed materials.
During the processing phase, the material being processed, through nozzles installed in the cleaning chamber, is exposed to a stream of detergent, with which the materials to be washed are freed from adhering oil-containing or fat-containing processing residues. Rotating the washing basket results in good mixing, so that the detergent can wet all parts of the material to be washed. The processing phase in the rinsing chamber, in which the rinsing nozzles are installed, proceeds similarly. The material to be washed, which is wetted with the detergent solution, is exposed to a flow of rinsing material, which rinses off the detergent residues adhering to the material to be processed. Here also, the rinsing effect is improved by the rotation. Likewise, the rotation of the material to be washed improves the drying process.
The facility is completed with a continuous method for working up the rinsing liquid by distillation, multiple use of the energy given off by the distillation process, for example, for heating the cleaning and/or rinsing liquid or for heating the drying air. In addition, the material being processed can be rinsed by immersion or spraying, blown off with compressed air and dried by vacuum and/or infrared radiation and aqueous or hydrocarbon-containing washing liquids can be used.
The known facility has proven its value in practice. However, the facility can be used effectively only if the material to be processed is filled into special containers, which are permeable to the treating medium. These special containers are, for example, transporting boxes of perforated sheet metal or lattice rods, because normal transporting boxes of sheet metal shield the material from the processing medium, so that there is no intensive contact. Therefore, in the case of the known cleaning facility, the material to be processed, which is brought along in normal transporting boxes, is transferred into appropriate special containers. This is cumbersome and time consuming, because it prevents continuous processing and further processing of the materials.
DE 195 09 645 A1 discloses a washing facility, for which a washing zone and a rinsing zone and a drying zone are disposed in an arc and preferably in a circle and are connected with one another by means of a transporting segment. Furthermore, between the washing zone and the drying zone, a loading and unloading zone are provided, with which a connection is established between the drying zone and the washing zone. Accordingly, objects can be brought to the loading zone onto the transporting segment and are transported in a circle and pass consecutively through the washing, rinsing and drying zones of the facility. Finally, the objects leave the facility once again at the place where they were brought into the facility in a dirty state.
A roller conveyor, disposed in the circle, or a turntable constructed as a screen or grid, on which the objects are transported, serves as transporting segment. Owing to the fact that the objects are brought into the facility at approximately the same place, where they are taken from the facility, one operator is sufficient for loading and unloading. In any case, the work of the operator is made easier, since long distances no longer have to be covered in order to get from the loading area to the unloading area. What applies for the manual operation of the plant, applies of course also for automatic loading and unloading, integration into a manufacturing line being possible. In this case, the manufacturing line itself does not increase in length, because the cleaning facility is set up next to and not spatially within the manufacturing line. Overall, the facility requires little space, so that it can be used even when space conditions are tight, inside or outside, for example, in a corner.
The facility is intended to be operated continuously and not cyclically. Furthermore, the objects cannot be moved while being processed; for example, they cannot be rotated or brought into an oscillating motion in order to experience processing all around with the processing medium. In addition, no support is provided for the objects on the transporting segment, so that the objects, brought onto the conveying segment by means of the conveying and handling equipment, can change their position during the processing, so that the unloading is more difficult than the loading. With the known facility, it is also not possible to flood the chambers with the processing medium in order to be able to immerse the object.